Analysis from the Green Bay Packers coaches film

Originally posted by lamontb:
Aldon was in beast mode from the jump. GB did a good job with that formation they ran from the 2nd quarter on. In the shotgun with a single back. That forces one of the linebackers off the field and that's when teams seem to have some success running the ball right up the gut.

One thing I noticed...its seems that they didn't substitute Willis out of the game nearly as much as they had vs GB in the past.

This is an excellent point. What's that alignment we usually do...5-2?

Our base defense is a 3-4 even alignment. We do use a lot of "over" and "under" as well, but we're mainly a true 3-4 even. That's where we have a NT, 2 DE, 2 OLB and 2 ILB.

When we go Nickel we use a 2-4 Nickel alignment. 2 DT's 4 LB's(2 OLB and 2 ILB) The biggest advantage with this alignment is that you have your two stud ILB's on the field against the run and because you're using OLB's as rushers, they also have to option of dropping into coverage. It makes things a lot harder on the O-line and QB to be sure who's rushing and who's not and what coverage will be run(again along with Fangio's preference to disguise).

When Willis comes out is in our Dime package whch is a 4-1-6 alignment. We'll move Smith and Brooks to DE with McD and Smith to DT's. I think they use Bowman in that coverage unit because rarely will a team only block with 5 guys, this will allow Bowman to serve as a "lurk" defender over the middle. Bowman is smoother in the hips than Willis which allows him to change direction faster. Willis is a faster one direction guy, but, in a lurk role you have to be able to change your direction quickly.

We'll also go with a quarter alignment sometimes, which is a 3-2-6 alignment. Meaning, 1 DT, 2 DE, 2 ILB and 6 DB's. When we do that we usually only rush 3. We used that a couple times in the GB game.

That's the one...I remember we used to run it almost exclusively against GB in the past but that was b/c they had no run game. Now they do. Thank you...

This was a play I thought Kaep did a really good job of recognizing the coverage very quickly.
This was 11:32 in the first quarter:

Here we're running a bunch set out of 21 personnel, not usual to see from that personnel grouping. We're expecting man coverage so we have the reciever's bunched to avoid the jam and are gonna run a pick in/out curls with Boldin and Davis. You see the safety shaded to Crabtree's side.

Right before the snap the safety started to rotate towards the middle of the field, showing a single high look.

From there, Kaep recognizes the 1-1 coverage against the cover 3 zone(i'll get to the zone read in a sec). The corner at the top has moved because Kaep is throwing the ball, but, he was in position over Davis to drive on his curl route. You see how there were 2 defenders around Davis early in the game. Kaep made a great back shoulder throw to Crabs for a first down.

From this angle you see where Kaep's read goes to after he see's the single high safety. If the LB, Hawk. #50 shoots outside towards Tukuafu heading to the flat he knows it's man coverage. If they keep square and drop into zones he knows it's zone. Once he recognizes zone he moves from his in/out read on Boldin and Davis to the 1-1 with Crabtree.

I just highlight his good mechanics here as to how he's able to put the ball in just the right spot. He gets a good drive off his backfoot, pointing his front foot towards the target.

Originally posted by thl408:
Pretty much like a division game playing four times in 2 years. Good take on Brooks. I did not notice his subpar play at all. Interesting that the 49ers this year played SEA (x2), WAS, IND, HOU and GB (x2). All are predominantly zone blocking run teams. There are only a handful of teams in the league that use zone blocking and the 49ers played five of them. When I noticed that I looked up the YPC for those games and the 49ers were not faring well. Rushing totals were fine, but YPC was a bit high. I'm glad Lacy was kept in check for the most part.

Agreed, perhaps the game plan was to get to Rodgers as much as possible and crack that collar bone b/c both OLB's were rushing hard this game and not hesitating in their first step. I noted before the game that we tend to struggle with power backs (it seems this way anyhow) and predicted Lacy would be in the 4-5 yard YPC range but the overall average won't tell the whole story...these big backs can break us a bit on a few drives here and there and wear us down. Then they can also be stuffed a bit and stretched out for no gains/TFL. Lacy was a handful and they had a nice balance of run/pass. It seemed like Rodgers took advantage of the pass rush and off coverage and starting dinking and dunking us a couple times for scores.

actually, on the 14 play drive they had to really get back in the game we were playing press coverage most of that drive, but like I said in the OP, Rodgers was getting to his checkdown on a lot of plays. And yes, Nelson was his checkdown on a few plays.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
This was a play I thought Kaep did a really good job of recognizing the coverage very quickly.
This was 11:32 in the first quarter:

Here we're running a bunch set out of 21 personnel, not usual to see from that personnel grouping. We're expecting man coverage so we have the reciever's bunched to avoid the jam and are gonna run a pick in/out curls with Boldin and Davis. You see the safety shaded to Crabtree's side.

Right before the snap the safety started to rotate towards the middle of the field, showing a single high look.

From there, Kaep recognizes the 1-1 coverage against the cover 3 zone(i'll get to the zone read in a sec). The corner at the top has moved because Kaep is throwing the ball, but, he was in position over Davis to drive on his curl route. You see how there were 2 defenders around Davis early in the game. Kaep made a great back shoulder throw to Crabs for a first down.

From this angle you see where Kaep's read goes to after he see's the single high safety. If the LB, Hawk. #50 shoots outside towards Tukuafu heading to the flat he knows it's man coverage. If they keep square and drop into zones he knows it's zone. Once he recognizes zone he moves from his in/out read on Boldin and Davis to the 1-1 with Crabtree.

I just highlight his good mechanics here as to how he's able to put the ball in just the right spot. He gets a good drive off his backfoot, pointing his front foot towards the target.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here it is, I just finished going through the GB game. That was one heck of a game between two very talented teams that know each other well.
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Go Niners!

P.S. as usual, breakdowns to follow:

Pretty much like a division game playing four times in 2 years. Good take on Brooks. I did not notice his subpar play at all. Interesting that the 49ers this year played SEA (x2), WAS, IND, HOU and GB (x2). All are predominantly zone blocking run teams. There are only a handful of teams in the league that use zone blocking and the 49ers played five of them. When I noticed that I looked up the YPC for those games and the 49ers were not faring well. Rushing totals were fine, but YPC was a bit high. I'm glad Lacy was kept in check for the most part.

Crazy stat is Rodgers did not complete one pass in the entire 1st quarter. On many of those plays I thought they were coverage sacks as he did not even pull the trigger. I haven't watched the entire game on All22 yet, only the 49er offensive plays.

I agree the Packers were set out on shutting down VD and were going to live with Crabs 1 on 1. We know the stat line for Crabs. Very encouraging that teams can focus on shutting one guy down, then another will shine. As Kap establishes his arm as a weapon, teams will have to pick and choose whether to sit in zone coverage to keep their eyes on Kap, or man up and risk getting gashed for 15-30 yard scrambles.

And THAT is what fans of other teams have been missing all year when we complain about not having Crab. I remember having those arguments and peeps would be like "oh yeah, one guy is going to fix your entire passing game LOL".

Well, as a matter of fact...

It's not just Crab catching the ball. Its the THREAT of Crab that forces you to play honest. With no Crab and Vernon hurt, teams could just sit on the already speed challenged Boldin and Niners were toast.

With Crab, they have to play more honest. More importantly, when plays break down Kap and Crab already have a chemistry to find an open spot and make a "sandlot" play. Kap doesn't have that same chemistry with any other player on the team. Not even Vernon or Boldin. Thats also why Crab needs to be resigned. Soon.

It also goes beyond that even from a schematic standpoint. Generally teams want big, physical guys playing the "X" receiver role. Cause their going to usually be away from the TE they have to be able to win 1-1 matchups more often. We had to play Boldin in that role a lot, because if we didn't, the other guys couldn't get open without VD and even sometimes with him. Now, we're able to play Boldin OR Crabtree in the "X" or "Z" interchangeably. This means, they can't just say double "boldin" because he may be lined up as the Z and you're not going to be able to give both safety help and backout/TE coverage on that side.

We ran the exact same passing play, threw it to the slot receiver both times, and one time it was Crabs, the other it was Boldin. Because they're interchangeable now it makes it vastly difficult for the defense to identify who they are really trying to double.

Jonnydel, what did you think of Colin's progress in the pocket progressing through his reads in this playoff game? I listed to Greg Cosell's analysis with Tom Tolbert (interview yesterday evening on KNBR).

Cosell admitted he's perplexed by QBs like Newton and CK7 and not sure how to judge them as quarterbacks because they are clearly gifted runners who are unfinished passers. He believes (and I agree) and there has to be a balance in when you have your QB abandoning the pocket on a scramble and when you have the QB hang in there, shift/reset his feet, and make additional reads. He wasn't saying Colin or JH are wrong in how they approached the Green Bay game, but he implied that CK7 is still jumping to running/leaving the pocket too soon and not developing his read progression skills a la Brady/Brees/Manning pocket QB style.

Cosell also theorized that at some point, you face a defense competent at taking away the scrambling and read option lanes. (Carolina and Seattle are clearly two of those types of defenses and are likely the next two teams we play, assuming a win in CAR). He said he is concerned that when those defenses set up against a Newton or CK7's scrambling/RO tendency, without having developed read progression skills, the passing offense is in trouble.

We all saw what happened @SEA, IND, CAR, and @NO. In those four games, Colin was criticized soundly for playing poorly in the pocket, missing reads, abandoning the pocket too early, etc. And in all those games, we lost. (I realize there are many mitigating factors like Crabtree and Davis being injured, and the rest of the receiving corps being subpar or Roman having occasional brainfarts in his playcall and play design but my focus is on Colin.)

Based on what you've seen in the GB tape, and judging Cosells' comments above, are you concerned about CAR or SEA forcing Colin into being a strict pocket passer and have you seen enough progression in Colin's game that he can avoid repeating the four losses?

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here it is, I just finished going through the GB game. That was one heck of a game between two very talented teams that know each other well.

Bear in mind that the Packers offense is, by far, the best offense we will face all season barring we face the Broncos in the SB. They scored more points on us during the regular season than any other team and Aaron Rodgers is probably the best all around QB we will face this year.

To talk about the defensive side of the ball:

Our defense played great. Yes, we gave up some long drives during the game, but, that was Aaron Rodgers playing at a really high level with a great receiving corps. Also, I counted at least 7-8 holds that weren't called on the O-line of GB that all gave GB 6-10 yard plays.

Aldon Smith gets the defensive MVP award for that game from me. He was an absolute beast throughout the game. The first 3 3 and outs by GB was largely due to Aldon. It wasn't just his pass rush, it was his ferocious edge setting against the run. On one play in the first quarter he didn't get the tackle but should have gotten credited for it because he threw his blocker so violently backwards and to the ground that Eddie Lacey's legs were taken out by the defender Aldon threw down. On another play he drove the LT almost 10 feet back into Aaron Rodgers.

Brooks has struggled against the run the past couple of games, he didn't do so well against Arizona either. Aldon has been absolutely on fire though, his presence alone limits what opposing offenses can do, even when he's not getting sacks, he's doing well in setting the edge as you mentioned, to think that one of the biggest worries about him in the draft in 2011 was how he would hold up in coverage as well as against the run, he's done well in both categories.

Originally posted by NCommand:
Wait, Brooks had 2 sacks, 5 QB hits, 3rd in tackles and a forced fumble and he had a bad game b/c of containment? LOL.

On a serious note, you are right, containment is usually his best asset and s/b an anomaly. Great breakdown though.

Looking forward to your "how to beat Carolina" break down!

He's missed some tackles over the past few games, or overrun the play completely. I saw the same thing against Arizona, don't think it's a huge deal but he'll need to be on point against Carolina with Williams, Stewart and Tolbert back there.

Originally posted by jonnydel:
Here's an example of how much a beast Aldon is; this was the first play of the game:

Here GB comes out in a 3 wr set to force us into our Nickel defense. They put the TE on Aldon's side forcing him to widen out. You see how much real estate it creates for a running lane to the outside.

At the snap of the ball, Smith immediately beats his block from the TE

Note how the TE is flailed over because Aldon slipped his block. This play is what makes Aldon so special, he has the quickness to defeat the block from a TE and then shows amazing power on the LT. After diismissing the TE Aldon does a good job, knowing he has contain on the run. He doesn't take an inside move on the T, instead he's going to set the edge.

Aldon drives the outside shoulder of the T back, Lacey knows he can't cut inside because of Smith's position and Smith knows Lacey will try and run outside and manhandles the T back into the lane with his outside arm.

He drives the LT right into Lacey, that's some power from an OLB.

Lacey is forced to cut it back(he does make some pretty good moves to gain a whole 1 yard). You see the lane the Lacey would've had if Aldon didn't keep contain on the play. If the TE gets a block on Aldon for even a half second the LT would've been in position to seal the edge on aldon and allow the TE to peal off onto Willis. Smith was a monster on this play.

The thing I noticed here was Aldon got hooked because he let the tackle get hands inside his frame and lost his leverage. Even still his assignment wasnt completely blown because he created a "hard point" and caused the running back to re-route. I've noticed Aldon has issues with letting blockers get "hands on" with him and it negates him at times. I'd like to see him get better in this respect. It comes down to being a better "hand fighter".

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